Anniversary
by Kei Tree
Summary: A short reflective piece from Toby's point of view on the anniversary of the Labyrinth, twelve years later. Please RR. Thanks!


AN: Thought I'd try one out from Toby's point of view. I'm not sure if I'm pleased with   
how it came out or not. I'm also still toying with the idea of developing a full blown   
story through Toby with a lot of Sarah/Jareth. Maybe a humor, maybe a drama or something.   
Any suggestions guys? Neway, drop me a line... Bye! ~Kei  
  
Standard disclaimers apply because I'm too tired to think of anything clever... LOL  
  
  
  
****************************** Anniversary **************************  
  
  
Tobias Williams paused, pen raised, above the page of his journal. He was a gangly   
adolescent, hovering between the edge of boyhood and manhood, beautiful in his innocence,   
but promising to become devastatingly handsome. He sighed and stared up at the darkening   
sky, gray eyes flashing blue as he tried to put his thoughts of the past into words that   
would fill the entry but no inspiration came.   
  
It was cold out and the trees were shedding their leaves like a snake's skin, leaving a   
thick, fine carpet of rich browns and red leaves that crunched satisfyingly under booted   
feet. He shivered as the west wind picked up and wrapped around him, an intimate lover   
that kissed reddened cheeks, chapped lips, and ruffled too long blonde hair.  
  
He needed a haircut.   
  
Long, impatient fingers brushed away the silken strands as his brows furrowed. Against his   
will tears gathered at his expressive eyes and he wiped them angrily away. Today was not a   
day of tears. That belonged to another day, the day his sister had walked out of his life   
and this world.  
  
Today was for remembrance.  
  
He struggled no more than he had ever struggled for this faithful entry. He had two slimly   
bound journals, one red, one black. Red was for today, black, for the OTHER day. When magic   
had claimed the body of the heart it had long possessed and Sarah had gave herself away.   
  
There was a single entry on each anniversary from the time he was six, when he had first   
held a pen and learned the art of written word. And every single one had been laboriously   
completed, poetry of his soul. There was nothing casual about this entry, and even the ones   
from the years before writing were carefully commemorated with awkward but crudely accurate   
finger paintings and scribbles, of owls and goblins and a dozen tilting staircases. And eyes,   
one green, one blue, as shifting as his own, that haunted his dreams to this day.   
  
His fingers brushed the date and Toby sighed again. Twelve years now. Since that fateful   
night when an ill spoken wish changed two mortal's lives forever. Cementing the fall of one,   
damaging the certainty of another.  
  
Determined to finish before the sun slunk fully below the horizon, he concentrated, carefully   
gathered his thoughts, and wrote.   
  
  
  
'Twelve years has passed so quickly and yet   
I still seem suspended, held immobile by events   
I barely remember. Philosophers often wonder if   
we're but mere immortal pawns in some cosmic   
chess game... I feel like one. Pushed and shoved   
and apart of some universal plan that   
I'll never know but will die in vain for.  
  
'I've grown up since the last year I sat in this   
park and last wrote in here. I see my world   
more clearly now and have lost some of the innocence   
I managed to maintain. But I never had   
a true childhood. The Labyrinth and Jareth saw to   
that.   
  
'Its funny how something so vague in the recesses   
of my memory can have such an impact upon   
my life. Did the Goblin King bespell me or are my   
troubles the creations of my own mind? I   
don't think I'll ever really know...  
  
'Twelve years ago this day my sister wished me   
away and won me back in the span of thirteen   
warped hours. She told me of her travels often   
during the years before she left, of her   
friends, of a stolen dance in a mirrored ballroom   
with the dashing Goblin King. She feared   
him once and I adored him.  
  
'I hate that our positions are reversed. I see so   
much of myself in her it frightens me   
sometimes. Sarah was never truly a part of this   
world. She walked on water and had her head   
in the clouds. She existed for magic and make   
believe and the tragic, intimidating love of a   
certain Goblin King. I'll never love Jareth but I   
feel as if I sit astride two planes of  
existence sometimes...  
  
'I'd give anything to be ignorant and foolish and   
a BOY but I don't have to have Sarah's   
enduring faith. I know that magic's real, that make   
believe can take on a reality all its   
own. That you should always be careful what you wish   
for.   
  
'An owl calls in the darkness and I start to shake.   
Its instinctual, and it shouldn't be.   
He never harmed me, wouldn't have I think, even if   
Sarah had failed. Funny thing is, from my   
murky memories of the Labyrinth, the thing I remember   
most is laughter, mine, his, the wild   
giggles of a dozen eager goblins.  
  
'But I knew on some level, no matter my youth, that   
the moment Sarah's belief in the make   
believe was affirmed that I had lost her, my sister,   
my soul. My best friend and closest   
confidant. She lived for the memories I could barely   
recall. Lived for the tenuous love of   
an angered Goblin King and the fumbling friendship   
of an assortment of beasts and creatures.  
  
'She drifted so far away, even before... The only   
time I saw life in her, a hint of her true   
beauty, was when I asked her to tell me about Hoggle,   
of Ludo, or a hundred other minor   
adventures within the dream. Sarah was lost to me   
before she gave herself to the Goblin   
King but I can't help being bitter...  
  
'For her leaving. For me being so much like her   
when I know I was destined for normalcy. For being   
left behind. They changed me and here I am, a shadow,   
a ghost in a world that I can never fit in and be   
a part of.   
  
'Twelve years ago my bland appealing future was altered   
forever and my sister's fate was inexorably sealed   
to the fickle adoration of an immortal king. But   
those musings, those tears, THOSE memories are for   
my other day of remembrances and regrets.   
  
'So, happy twelve year anniversary... Happy   
anniversary to me.'  
  
  
  
He sighed deeply and shut the journal gingerly. It was cathartic, his yearly entries.   
He tried not to think about his past too much. Tried to ignore what he had become and why.   
Only on certain days did Toby drop the carefully constructed masks to look, really look, at   
himself.   
  
It was always a sobering experience.   
  
He stood and brushed grass carefully from his pants. He paused for a moment and let the   
calmness of the lake and park surround and fill him before slowly heading home, leaves brittle   
under his feet, journal tucked under one lanky arm.   
  
It was almost fully dark now but he still saw the huge owl perched on a white waist high   
fence that ran through the park. It stared at him with wide unblinking eyes and ruffled its   
feathers with annoyed dignity. Toby stared at it for a long moment before nodding a silent   
hello and saluting, half mocking, half solemn.   
  
The owl clacked its beak open and shut with an audible snap.   
  
"Tell my sister hello and happy anniversary..." The owl stilled immediately and Toby   
smiled grimly. "See you same time next year?"   
  
He smiled grimly as the predatory bird flinched, before nodding and continuing on his way,   
humming softly under his breath, a boy-man walking a razor's edge between reality and   
pretend and trying to deal with the fact that one was no less real and concrete than the   
other...  
  
"Happy anniversary to me, happy anniversary to me, twelve long years of not knowing who   
to be, happy anniversary to me..." 


End file.
